


Walk Towards the Light

by badboy_fangirl



Category: Prison Break
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-13
Updated: 2016-06-13
Packaged: 2018-07-14 18:51:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7185887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badboy_fangirl/pseuds/badboy_fangirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>LJ's guardian angel watches over him. Written at the end of season two.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Walk Towards the Light

There were two moments Lincoln showed up for, enthusiastically and without delay: LJ’s conception and his birth.

As I lay dying, the last breaths I took hurting my chest immensely, I remember wondering, even though logistically I knew he couldn’t, would there be any chance of him showing up now, when LJ needed him more than ever?

 

 

I watched my boy huddling against the cold bricks of an administrative building, his bare toes pink with cold in the early dawn of a Chicago morning. I was so grateful it was almost summer. He would have died out there in the winter.

When my son walked into Veronica Donovan’s arms, clinging to her tightly because she was all he had in the world, my arms started to hurt, and I wondered how I could feel pain in death. Words formed in my mind that told me it wasn’t physical pain that caused the ache, but all I knew was I wanted to hold him and I couldn’t. The irony that a woman I’d hated would be the only chance he’d have made my vision skew a little. 

But then I’d always secretly known I didn’t hate her for what she’d done. I hated her for who she was. She wasn’t me. And his father had never been with me that he wasn’t thinking about her, and years later, even when that no longer had the power to hurt me, I had never changed my mind.

But she guarded my child like a pit bull, and kept him safe when people came at her from every side. Ultimately, I was glad he was in jail when she got caught in the crossfire, because there was no one left to protect him.

 

 

Lincoln crouched behind a concrete barrier and I questioned the wisdom of his plan. He was always a little fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants, but even this was pushing it for him.

Then he got LJ, put him in a little purple sports car and roared off down the road, toward what I hoped was safety.

After more mishaps and seeing a car that LJ didn’t until it sent him flying, I began to wonder why I could still observe what was going on. I was helpless; I was all-knowing, but I was helpless. They couldn’t hear me shouting at them, but in quiet moments I would put my hand out, and I could almost feel his baby smooth skin under my fingertips and by concentrating very hard, I would see him visibly relax.

It broke my heart when Lincoln sent him away with Jane Phillips. I knew LJ would be safe with her, so that part made me happy, but seeing their individual pain, knowing they both trembled at leaving each other—knowing they might never see each other again, it was almost hard for me to follow LJ; a part of me wanted to stay and watch over Lincoln, and I hadn’t felt that way since LJ was a little baby.

That’s when I realized I’d never changed my mind about Lincoln being a deadbeat. But now I knew. He wasn’t. He loved our son so much he did the one thing he swore he would never do. Sending LJ away on purpose was different than not showing up for a Christmas pageant or a soccer game. He suddenly understood the things he’d missed in those moments too, but none of it would matter if they all ended up dead.

 

 

Adrian appeared by my side, and then I knew I hadn’t been watching it all alone. He’d been there, quietly supportive, like always. His eyes met mine and I knew it was finally time to move on, but I just had to linger a little, for a few more minutes.

Lincoln walked up the stairs of an apartment building in Spokane, Washington. He walked them slowly, like he wasn’t dying to get to the second floor, but in his hands he clutched a wrapped package. He looked better than the last time I’d seen him, and there was a smile on his face that he kept trying to shut down, but couldn’t. By the time he got into the hallway of the second floor, LJ was opening the door and flying into his arms, sending the gift, whatever it was, to the wood paneling beneath their feet. I heard LJ say, “You didn’t need to bring me anything.”

I’d seen a glimpse, after all the carnage, and something told me there would be more moments where Lincoln showed up enthusiastically than ever before. I was blessed to see the first ones, but I won’t see the last. “Yes, I did,” Lincoln said, his arms wrapped tight around the compact frame of our son. 

It was then that my arms stopped aching, and I could turn and walk towards the light.


End file.
